Old Sailors Never Die
For Lawrence Pane getting a little dinghy isn’t the problem, it’s getting into one
“Old sailors never die, they just get a little dinghy.” It may be a hoary old joke, but one of my problems at age 79 is I can no longer get easily in and out of a little dinghy, and neither can my (several years younger than me) wife. For this, and various other reasons I will list in excruciating detail below, a few years ago we nally sold Dolphin Spirit, our lovely, cutter rigged, Mason 53.
I had owned her since 1992, and she had taken my wife, son and me around the world safely, comfortably and serenely, in the face of my many mistakes and general ineptitude. How many of us have friends, family or even spouses who can su er such indignities and still stay silent and forgiving?
To be clear, I am a cruising sailor, not a racing sailor. I do not tack more than once a day, and then only a er hours of contemplation. Having said that, many years ago, I loaded Dolphin Spirit up with 15 people (just two of whom had actually sailed before) and more snacks and drinks than should be legal, and we nished third in our division in the Newport-to-Ensenada race. e next year we bettered our previous time by more than six hours, and did not place— as good a reason as any to never race again.
During our six-and-a-half year circumnavigation, I did all the maintenance and xed everything that broke. To do that, I carried an extensive inventory of spare parts, with tools and operating manuals for almost everything. However, all that would have been useless without some exibility—mine!
I found early on that many absolutely essential maintenance tasks can be carried out only by a contortionist who has the ability to ignore pain. ere has to be a special place in hell for those designers who know jobs like changing the raw water impeller, replacing the drive belts and changing fuel lters have to be regularly done, but still place these items at the extreme limits of human reach.
is was no problem for the younger, more exible me. To check the gearbox oil level, I could slide feet rst under the sole, twist and bend double to essentially touch my toes and then hold that position for as long as necessary. Today, sliding in feet rst is still not a problem, but pretty much everything else is.
As every cruiser knows, the captain’s main responsibility is to keep the toilets operational. at requires a strong stomach, spare parts and the ability to spend prolonged periods of time crouched in con ned quarters. How many times did I yearn for a return to those seats with holes in them leading directly to the sea that were once used on the old square-riggers? One time, my oldest son and his future bride came to be with us while we were at anchor in Mykonos. Within 10 minutes of arrival, she had to use the toilet, and it immediately blocked up. I jumped into action and had everything operational again within 30 minutes. I tell this story, not simply to note the way I endeared myself to her by quipping that I now knew more about her than her doctor did, but to proudly point out the 30 minutes. A similar problem early last year took two days to x and was followed by a trip to the chiropractor and the decision that moving forward we only really needed one operational toilet on board.
en there was the time the forward head sink blocked up. An easy x: turn o the through-hull, remove, clear and replace the non-return valve; lie on your side on the oor, twist upper body so as to insert head and one arm through the opening under the sink; through-hull o , hose clamps loosened, screws taken out, valve maneuvered free—10 minutes max. Same steps in reverse to re-install. All done in 25 minutes without breaking a sweat.
Alas, that was back in the the day. is was now. Faced with another blockage a few years ago, I got down on the oor easily enough—gravity works! Head through the opening—no problem. Raise arm and twist upper body to allow arm insertion—not going to happen. What had to be done was there, right in front of me, no more than 12in from my nose. But it may as well have been on the moon. For the sake of brevity, we will gloss over how I got back up o the oor again. Let me just say it was not with the same cat-like grace that once le any beholders in awe.
On a happier note, actually sailing the boat was not on the list of problems, as I had long since set up Dolphin Spirit for singlehanding. Electric winches take all of the hard work out of unfurling and furling the in-mast mainsail, and controlling the jib and staysail.